Wednesday, November 20, 2013

"Nebraska, The Movie, Not The State (Which I Do Not Known Anything About, Although When Did That Ever Stop Me From Writing About Something Before?")

Let’s do this Jeopardy-style.

The answer is….

“The details.”

BUZZ!

Pomerantz – Toronto
Hebrew Day School!(No wait, that’s College Bowl.)

Your question to the answer “The details”, Mr. Pomerantz?

“What makes a movie special and well worth seeing?’”

Correct!

And what movie are we talking about today, and, knowing you,
it is almost certainly more than fifty years old?

The movie is Nebraska.And it just came out.

Apology accepted.

End of Jeopardy
Sequence.

We saw Nebraska
recently in one of those theaters where the only way you can buy tickets is on
the Internet.(To which they add a
one-dollar “supplemental service charge” even though you are provided no
alternative option for buying a ticket.)

We considered ourselves fortunate to get in.The last time we submitted to this routine we
showed up only to discover that our Internet submission had not been recorded
and that we, therefore, did not, in fact, have
tickets.How exactly is that a “service”,
when the ticket purchases are hit and miss because of either their error or
ours?It seems more like the lottery.

Anyway, we got in this time. And for substantial portions of Nebraska, I was extremely happy we
did.

Nebraska is a
sporadically wonderful movie.(Which, by
today’ standards , makes it a virtual classic.)

The – I am coming to believe – “Guiding Genius” behind Nebraska (written by Bob Nelson)is director Alexander Payne, whose impressive
gifts I was introduced to as the director and co-writer (along with frequent
collaborator Jim Taylor) of Election (1999),
a hilarious allegory on driving ambition set during a (once again Nebraskan)
High School Student Council election.

Most recently (before Nebraska)
Payne hit major pay dirt with The
Descendants (2011), which garnered five Oscar
nominations (including one for director Payne), and won an Oscar for “Best
Adapted Screenplay”, Payne, Nat Faxon and Jim Rash dividing the honors.

Both Nebraska and The Descendants involve a “Big Score”
story arc.In The Descendants, it’s real – the sale of a huge tract of primo
Hawaiian real estate they own can net an extended family an enormous fortune.

In Nebraska, the
“Big Score” is a pathetic pipe dream.As
a result of receiving a transparent come-on mailer sent by a company promoting
magazine subscriptions, Woody Grant (played convincingly by Bruce Dern), a flawed
and borderline dementiaed Senior Citizen believes that he has actually won a
million dollars, and needs only to go to the company’s Nebraska headquarters to
collect it.

After several failed efforts to get there on foot (Woody is
no longer permitted to drive), the intermittently clear-headed old codger
“guilts” his youngest son David (portrayed credibly if not memorably by Will
Forte) into joining him on a road trip, chauffeuring him to his mistakenly
expected Pot of Gold.

Along the way, Nebraska family members and friends from the
past come to believe that Woody is legitimately in line for a windfall, and they
begin hounding him for a “taste” of they
believe is rightfully due them.

The impeccably observed details enrich the storytelling,
beginning with a vast and threatening overhead skyscape, which I know from
personal experience predicts that “A bone-chilling blizzard is inexorably on
its way.”

In Nebraska, very
actor and their Midwestern-looking face (with the exception of the overly stentorian
Stacy Keach) seems to have been been painstakingly, almost lovingly,
selected.(Payne is originally from
Nebraska and still spends considerable time there.)

It’s the same thing with the buildings.Mirroring the devastating reversals in the
local economy, the still standing Nebraskan farmhouses reflect the appropriate
proportion of peeling paint.

I liked Nebraska
quite a bit, though I was no fan of what seems to me to be a tacked-on,
insistently uplifting resolution.But
you know me.I’m the guy who describes virtually
all American movies as being about somebody who wants something and in the end
they get it.

In the world of the mandatorily triumphant ending, there is
little love in the movie business for an alternative option in which somebody
wants something and they don’t get it
but instead, they get something that may be more valuable than what they had
originally coveted.It is my perhaps
cynical view that the proposal of that
potentially more emotionally satisfying trajectory would inevitably be
responded to with a studio executive saying,

“I see what you’re going for.Do it the other way.”

Although I have taken considerable space providing one, a
review of Nebraska is not my primary
intention here.What triggered this blog
post is a negative review by the respected New
Yorker film critic David Denby, who appears to dislike to the movie because
it lampoons helpless people – specifically the economically disadvantaged
Nebraskans.

Denby writes, in part:

We seem to have
entered dim-bulb territory: People are
eager to believe that Woody has won a fortune and refuse to hear David tell
them that the prize isn’t real.They
suddenly turn greedy – they want a piece of it.{Unlike the targets in other Payne movies}… these people have no pretentions, no power.What is
there to make fun of?

Denby’s argument is in the territory of, “You do not attack
somebody when they’re down.”Me, I am
not entirely certain about that.

By nature or proclivity, Alexander Payne is a cultural
satirist.And the satirist’s job is to poke
fun at deserving targets. Wherever they
find them.Suffering indisputable hard
times alone does not immunize a person against being an idiot.When it comes to behavior, even the
downtrodden have options.And if you
independently opt for “the low road”, and there’s a satirist around, up or
down, you are unquestionably asking for trouble.

I guess I am biasedly partial to satirists, an all too rare
perspective in a culture that insists – sometimes frighteningly – on the
patriotic myopia of “American Exceptionalism.”

I recommend Nebraska
for its sharply delineated moments of less than “top of the line” behavior, and
for its artfully highlighted specifics.And also – worth the price of admission alone – for the Oscar-worthy performance by June Squibb
as Woody’s honest-to-a-fault but ultimately steadfast and loving wife.Watching this never-had-a-role-she-could-truly-sink-her
teeth-into veteran blow the walls off is a delectable ice cream cone of an
experience.

However, if you’re a “The underdog – Right or Wrong”
proponent, I would give the movie a pass.That perspective will prevent you from enjoying Nebraska’s good parts.

And who wants to pay ten bucks and counting to be offended
and annoyed?

1 comment:

I just want to say that I really enjoy your writing. I'd suggest you try to get a general interest column writing job somewhere, but I'm pretty sure you'd find the pay wasn't worth the added pressure, though you might find it satisfying in other ways. Anyway...

I have often said that bad writers can make the most interesting subjects boring and good writers can create interest where there was previously none. I learned this after I ordered a series of Time-Life books in the early eighties, a set covering a wide variety of subjects about which I thought I'd enjoy becoming more informed. Every single one was unbelievably boring.

On the other hand, though I have absolutely no interest whatsoever in seeing this movie or The Sunshine Boys, I thoroughly enjoyed reading what you had to say about them. Because I really like the way you write.